Putin’s Russia: first arrests under new anti-LGBT laws mark new era of repression

By Sergey Katsuba, PhD Candidate, Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin

Just over three decades after Russia decriminalised homosexuality in 1993, three people have been arrested and charged under the country’s harsh new anti-LGBT laws and could face ten years in prison for membership of an “extremist organisation”.

The arrests are a clear indication of how Russia has come full circle on its persecution of sexual minorities under Vladimir Putin.

On March 21, the district court of Orenburg city in south-western Russia…

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